PS005 - Zen, Bondage and Authenticity with JD
In this bonus podcast, I find myself in San Francisco interviewing JD on zen, bondage, philosophy for authenticity, and the intersections on kink, sex, passion, and eastern philosophy. Even with extra Alan Watts! JD is member of the internationally renowned bondage duo Two Knotty Boys. He is the producer of over 300 knot and rope bondage instructional videos, and is the coauthor of two popular rope bondage guidebooks, “Two Knotty Boys Showing You the Ropes” (2006) and “Two Knotty Boys Back on the Ropes” (2009). Aside from his work as an educator and promoter of the rope arts, he is also a writer. His popular essay “The Way of the Zen Rope Master” was featured in the anthology, “Rope Bondage and Power” and his multiple novels can be found and purchased at, among other places, Amazon.com.
Find their videos and work free at TwoKnottyBoys.com
Scene music on today’s episode is the song In Flight from the album Yami Kallima by Pocket Universe
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[music intro]
Announcer:
Welcome to Erotic Awakening, a weekly view of all things erotic. From BDSM to erotic spirituality, from swinging as a lifestyle, to simply fun kink. Each week we bring you a diverse offering of erotic and alternative lifestyles in its many forms. This podcast includes frank discussions of highly sexual topics. This podcast is intended for consenting adults over the age of 18. If you offended by this type of content, we recommend you stop listening right now.Lee:
Hello, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, and welcome to Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington.Now, okay, I know it's not my normal podcast week and normally I'm here for my monthly show on the third Monday of each month, give or take the scheduling adventures, but this is one of those scheduling adventures. And don't worry, in a few weeks, I'll be back with my normal podcast, with the subject being dominance and submission and specifically the sacred calling of mastery and slavery. But… I'm here early. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dan and Dawn for letting me come back early because an opportunity has arisen. I just couldn't say no to it, you know what I mean?
This week, I'm supposed to be in New Zealand, but I'm not. There was an event that was supposed to happen called Southern Exposure, but for people who watched the news and saw, there was some big earthquakes in New Zealand a little while ago. And unfortunately, the hotel had to cancel the contract for the conference, because it just wasn't a safe option. I had booked my flights in and out of the United States, out of San Francisco, with the logic being I could fly in and out of San Francisco, and have a layover for one day each way, and it would be fantastic. And instead, I found myself with an eight day layover here in San Francisco.
Now, the beautiful thing about that for you listening at home means that because I'm in San Francisco, I've gotten this opportunity to actually schedule time with - well, how to describe it, the insightful, delightful, my friend JD.
JD:
Hi!
Lee:
So JD, for folks who don't know at home, because people might know him from other names and other personas -JD:
I know!Lee:
- JD is a member of the internationally renowned bondage duo, Two Knotty Boys. You're a lot of other things though.JD:
I am many things.Lee:
So you've produced over 300 knot tying videos.JD:
Very true.Lee:
Which is staggeringly large. You're putting one out, like, almost every single week at this point.JD:
Every week, once a week at least. Once a week. My record right now is, I'm once a week consistently for three years.Lee:
Wow.JD:
I was doing it about every other week prior to that, but now I'm doing it once a week.Lee:
And that's hard for almost anybody to say that they've done anything once a week, every week for three years.JD:
That's true, that's true. And yeah, but I love it.Lee:
Well, you're also a bit of a rope addict at times.JD:
That's true.Lee:
Because not only have you released the videos, you've also had two different books come out with the Two Knotty Boys.JD:
We have Two Knotty Boys Showing You the Ropes, came out in 2006. And then we had Two Knotty Boys Back on the Ropes in 2009.Lee:
Yeah.JD:
And then, yeah.Lee:
And apart from that, you're also, you've put out, you've written novels.JD:
I have, yeah.Lee:
You've worked on, you actually did a short story for - or a short story, excuse me, an essay - for Rope, Bondage, and Power, which was my rope bondage "why” anthology that came out a couple of years ago. And you just keep teaching, and moving, and going, and doing, which is great.JD:
Yeah, no, it's - I see life as a massive gift, and the capacity to explore and create is kind of my purpose. It's really why I'm here. It's why I do what I do. It's, you know, it's my joy.Lee:
And for people who are interested in all the rope bondage stuff, they can go find all of that over at twoknottyboys.com. But, that's not what we're here for today.JD:
No.Lee:
I love rope, you love rope, we both love rope.JD:
We do.Lee:
We're both rope addicts, all right?JD:
We are.Lee:
But sometimes there's more than the addiction.JD:
That's right.Lee:
Sometimes there's the rest of our journey. So, for you guys listening at home, we're gonna have an adventure today. We're gonna go off the ropey path, and off into the distant woods and see what happens. I mean, we might stumble back onto some rope as we go along.JD:
It's a part of the journey. (Lee laughs) It's not the entire journey, but it's definitely a part of it.Lee:
Exactly.JD:
But yeah, people who know me personally know that I'm a big spiritualist. So I'm really, really - I spent a lot of my time sort of evaluating the human condition, questioning my own, sort of, participation in my life, and trying to make sense of what is otherwise - can be for some - a complex and scary world, you know?Lee:
Absolutely.JD:
Who am I? What am I? How can I manifest my dreams and ambitions? How can I connect with others in the way I would like to? How can I reach that vision of success? And especially as being a sex educator, you find a lot of people who are struggling with the same type of questions.Lee:
Absolutely. The number of times I've had people come to my class and then come away going, “I thought I was going to a class on punching and kicking, but suddenly I'm debating the nature of existence! I'm not sure what to do with that.”JD:
Yeah, that's the way it goes. That's exactly how it goes. And that's the beauty of it.But yeah, one of the things that comes up a lot is a concept that I think about and talk about with friends - is basically understanding your own participation in the experience that you're having. I find that people's lack of awareness of their own participation in everything that they experience leads to a lot of problems. Both in their own identification with the power struggle, like - how do I actualize what I want, how do I live the life that I'm seeking, and then also how do I communicate, how do I, sort of, embrace a relationship which is fulfilling, connective, and mutually satisfying.
Lee:
Right.JD:
The way I put it is, I effectively tell people - and this might be contrary to a lot of people's, sort of, fundamental beliefs, (Lee laughs) what I'm about to say, but I always find - I watch a lot of NOVA specials, and there's a lot of theories of everything. They always have this god particle that they're looking for, or they try to sort of find the category of all categories. Everything's stuck in a category. When you ask someone what something is, for example, you're really asking what category it is. Is it a rock, is it a mineral, is it a vegetable?Lee:
And we see that all the time in the scene when you walk into a munch for the first time, and it's like, “so are you top or bottom?” “Hi, my name's Lee…?”JD:
Exactly, yeah, and that's a necessary aspect of life. This isn't to say the categories aren't convenient, only that there's always this ever-seeking of the category of all categories. How do we observe ourselves? It's kind of like we're trying to look at the back of our own heads, and the more we turn, the farther the back of our head turns. And this sort of lack of connectivity with what the circumstances of the observation are, the experience are, can lead to frustrations like those types of things.Lee:
Right.JD:
And so I always say when I watch and I read these things, or I watch these things, these specials or these books that I read, any sort of description of the universe, any description of the world that doesn't include the individual is really lacking. Like, I'm not as moved or motivated by that theory unless there's some kind of recognition of the participation of the person in the observation or the experience that they're having.The example I give is, if you wanted to know what an amoeba moved like, right? If you wanna know how its mobility worked, you would first have to find some pond water, and then you would place this amoeba on a glass slip, and then put a glass slide on it, and slide it under a compound microscope, and then view through an optic lens, and adjust your focus until you can see this thing. And then you would start to watch it move. And you might write a paper that says “The Mobility of Amoebas.”
But the one thing that's fundamentally flawed about this type of circumstances is that we often fail to recognize the microscope. The fact that this is being viewed through a mechanism, which is often not discussed. And so it's not how it moves, or how it behaves, or how the world is, it's how it moves or behaves underneath the microscope.
And to bring it home to what I was talking about earlier, we are that microscope. We are focusing our attention in ways that pinpoint things that we notice, because we find them noteworthy.
Lee:
Well, but see, that I would argue that that makes us the eyes on the other side of the microscope. The microscope itself, though, is the framework with which this thing is being examined.JD:
Yes.Lee:
So there's the difference between, at least for myself, between conscious mind, and the filters I am looking through, the frameworks that I am looking through.JD:
The way I would put it is that - the observation and the observer are arising mutually. That separation is where the conflict comes from. Like, not recognizing that you are a part of the observation you're experiencing, or you're having. So when I look at you, I'm a part of this experience of you. That it's not just me over here, and you over there. I'm not this ego wrapped in a bag of flesh in a scary, inhospitable world. I'm a part of this world, I sort of grow organically, from this world. It's understanding the fundamental nature of the individual that can really help to assist you, in all sorts of ways, in a myriad of ways.Lee:
But you brought up that notion of organically developing your own identity, and organically developing your own sense of self, and all of that kind of stuff. But in the metaphor that you mentioned earlier, the idea of the microscope - there's a piece with the movement of the amoeba that I think it's lost there, especially when we look at sexuality populations, but the amoeba itself, right?That we're gonna track how an amoeba moves. So therefore we're gonna scoop it out of its natural environment -
JD:
Yes, yes.Lee:
- put it on a little piece of glass, smoosh it down, and expect that it's gonna move in the same ways that it would have moved out in the wild. This seems like a flawed analogy, I mean, not necessarily a flawed analogy, I think it's actually a great analogy, but I think it's a flawed argument. Because if we actually have that happen, the amoeba can only actually move in four directions now.JD:
Totally.Lee:
It can't move up and down in the ways that it did before. So to bring it back for people who are like, this has gone way past sexuality, I'm kind of lost. May I offer up an argument or a concept?JD:
It's not, what you're doing is you're making my point.Lee:
Okay.JD:
We're in a total agreement. I'll bring it home to sensuality.Okay, so you have, you're new to, we'll use rope bondage because it's something we both understand and know, but you're new to rope bondage. So you want to know how do I perform as a rope bondage dominant, okay?
So you read a book, or you go to a bunch of core courses, and they tell you - well, depending on who you speak to, you might speak to someone who's a shibari practitioner, and they have a very structured historical concept of who they are and how they express what they do.
Lee:
Right.JD:
So you say, okay, the person who taught the class has a kimono on, so I gotta get myself a kimono.Lee:
Right.JD:
And then the person who taught the class said that this is a rich history, and we must use hemp rope. And that there's only certain ties that you can do, and knots are frowned upon. And this is the way you do it, and this is the way you go about it.And so you do this. This is the mechanism by which you try to understand the concept. This is your microscope. This is the way you go about your business. And then you interact with someone as if, somehow, there's going to be this magical conclusion to this series of actions. Like that if I believe in this, then I'll have this physical experience.
But you feel separated, You feel awkward. You constantly compare yourself to the instructor's behavior, and you say, I'm not living up to their standards. You feel inauthentic. And it's not recognizing that your mechanistic way of going about this is, in itself, a part of the experience you're having.
Lee:
Right.JD:
So it's not that you're doing something wrong, so much as you're not being authentic to your own nature, or the person potentially who you're with. Now you might find someone who really connects with that particular method, and you might find yourself really connect to that method. And if that's the case, go for it. But in those cases where it's not connecting, you may want to step back and say, what am I doing? How am I influencing this experience?And that would be, like you just pointed out very astutely, that would be - you're not seeing things for what they truly are, because you only see the left to right. You're not recognizing that this microscope isn't working for a true observation, a true experience of the way this works, be it central or otherwise. And so that's really what that analogy is more pointing out, rather than trying to actually teach you a thing or two about amoebas.
Lee:
Right, but what I think is really valuable, because there are some people who might be listening who this is a new concept for, to actually flat-out say that - what about the possibility that if something isn't working for you, and left, right, up, down isn't working, what about the depth? What about the notion of working outside of that slide, and looking at what happens if you actually examine your sexuality in its natural environment, rather than the framework of what your professor taught you, or what you read in a book once or things like that? What happens if we actually look at our own true sexual, authentic nature as individuals?JD:
And what if we accept it?Lee:
Oooh.JD:
What if we simply sit with ourselves and say “everything I am right now is okay?” Everything I am right now is absolute perfection. That there isn't something to strive for. There isn't a better me.The way I phrased it in a few books that I've written, some novels that I've written, is the concept that we have - we meet people and they have the person that they are, and the person that they believe themselves to be, or they should be. So there's the person I am, and then there's the better me. So you'll say, “oh I fucked up” or “oh I shouldn't have done that.” As if there was another you that could outdo it. (Lee laughs) You know what I’m saying?
Lee:
This is a rehearsal right now. I'm making notes for the screen as we go forward.JD:
Who could out-Lee Harrington you? You know what I mean?Lee:
Right.JD:
There's only one Lee Harrington. There's no better Lee Harrington out there, there's no perfect Lee Harrington. There's no Lee Harrington to strive to. There's only one Lee Harrington, and everything Lee Harrington does is absolute perfection. Everything! Because there's only one of you, in this particular manifestation.And so when you start to create that duality dance, that's where the frustration lies. And so you create these models, and these models start to muck up what's truly going on. And so accepting yourself, starting to recognize yourself, and giving yourself permission to be who you are, is not something I would necessarily - unless the book is encouraging you to do this, I often tell people, you know, let go of doctrines. Let go of other ways, necessarily, unless they really authentically speak to you. But start with your own voice. Start with asking yourself “who are you? What do you want?”
You know, a lot of times when I'm teaching someone, I'll hear all this busyness about, you know, I say, you know, I always use a microscope analogy, but I say, it sounds like you don't know how to, you're fuddling with this microscope, and you're just making a mess of the thing. Why don't you just go, fucking, swim a pond? Why don't you just get out there and just - find out what you discover?
Lee:
You know what? That sounds really easy, but for some folks, that notion of leaving the slide, and going out in the pond, that's - there's the possibility of the unknown.JD:
Well, it's always unknown. The thing is, and this is something I've said to people too, is that you have absolute permission to make matters worse. (Lee laughs) You have absolute permission to live in a constant state of anxiety. If you want to be a quaking mess, shivering, and scared, and detached from your experience, you go right ahead. I have no problem with that. There are means to calm the mind. There are means to come to a sense of awareness of yourself, and with that sense of awareness, a sense of love and compassion for yourself.And there is a gift you've been provided. You're an advanced cerebral cortex, that you have the concept of self, and a consciousness that can explore and question. It's your gift. You can spend that gift riddled with anxiety and question. You can spend that gift playing video games, smoking dope. You can do whatever you want. It's your gift. I'm just saying that this is a possible vehicle to have a different type of experience. And if that calls to someone, then they tend to continue in that way. And if not, then they don't have to. But it's just a choice.
Lee:
Now, you mentioned there's a number of different tools there. What are some of the different ones that you've done to figure out your sexual and personal identity? Or beyond identity, I should say, to just experience.JD:
It branches off the letting go of doctrines. With a doctrine, there becomes a preconstrained way. And what that leads to is the following statement: I always say that perfection is a form of suffering. When you idealize a certain behavior, or you create a paradigm that you need to strive for, what you're not doing is you're simply not being present to whatever's taking place before you.Lee:
Right.JD:
You're in your head, you're conceptualizing, rather than experiencing. It's been called, by Alan Watts - he says, “you're eating the menu instead of the meal.” You know the map, but not the territory. It's effectively taking the symbol, and failing to recognize that it's not the word “water,” for example, that quenches your thirst. It's the actual water that quenches your thirst. And so, letting go to some pre-described notion, letting go of perfection, going with the flow of the interaction.So, you start off and you may, for example, engage with your partner, initially you just feel fired up. And so, you grab your partner aggressively, and your partner sort of resists. And so, in my case, what I would do is soften. And then, maybe vocalize. “I feel, you know, randy. I wanna force fuck you. You know, I wanna do something aggressive.”
Lee:
Yeah, love it.JD:
If that's received positively, you go with it. If it's not, then you listen - but here's the catch. You try not to wrong yourself. And I say try, because you have to come to a place where you have to, if you're going to be in the moment, you have to be able to accept the moment. And there's a lot of, for example, in our scene, in the kinky scene, you have safe words. And in many cases, this type of communication, this ability to say, you've red, yellow, green, where green is, everything's A-OK, often forgotten, but it's very necessary. Keep moving forward, I'm good.Lee:
Oh yeah, absolutely.JD:
People are, we've got egos, even though they are symbols of ourselves.Lee:
Well, I'm a big believer that - if all we hear is red, then I find a number of tops who start dreading hearing from their partners at all. Because all they ever hear is the bad words.JD:
That's what I'm gonna lead to. And also red, it can lead to top drop, too, in different ways.Lee:
Mm-hmm, right.JD:
Top drop because you just feel like a failure, and then top drop in the sense that you just don't know where you're going for this.But that is where it really comes down to. So you got your red, where everything stops, no questions asked. You got your yellow, let's check in. You got your green, which is A-OK. Everyone often - I shouldn’t say - a lot of people often will tell you those things, and say you have to allow your partner to check in. You have to also give yourself permission to hear what they're saying, and not wrong yourself for what they say. And so be okay with letting go, with stopping. If you wanted to go for aggressive exchange, but that's simply not the nature of the moment, you have to let go and move to another place.
Because I'll be honest with you, more often is the case, that if you start subtly different, it will move back to the place you wanted to be. Because it's about communication, it's about trust, it's about two people dancing. And one song might be “Careless Whisper,” but you can pick up the pace after a little while. (Lee laughs) You can start off with a little bit of something soft, and then move into something a little more aggressive.
Lee:
I don't know, I think sometimes this - language's obsession around the notion of safe words, I think it's a 201 level skill, if not a 301 level skill. I would love to see, whether it's the kink community, the swinger populations, folks - in general, people who are exploring their sexuality in a conscious way, right? Whatever the labels we're using for these various communities and groups are. I would love to see us actually use our words, and use our actual communication skills, beyond the code languages.JD:
I do it all the time.Lee:
But I mean, a lot of people where it's like they’re reliant, where people are reliant upon safe words, or on code words or symbols, instead of saying, (enthusiastically) “oh, that's really good.”JD:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.Lee:
I would love to hear those kinds of words on a more regular basis.JD:
And that is fine. And this is gonna, I'm gonna say this, and you know this, you know this. It's just jogging your memory, because you and I are on the same page, because I'm like you. (Lee laughs) So we win, everyone out there in Podcast Land. (Lee laughs) Lee and JD are like each other, so we're an in-group!But there are others, there are others in the community who want to play with the “no's,” and they want to play with the “stops,” and they want to work through and play with rape fantasies.
Lee:
Absolutely.JD:
They want to be able to say “stop” without you stopping.Lee:
And that's why I say it's a 201/301 level skill. I'm not saying don't use it, it's a great tool.JD:
Of course.Lee:
And I use safe words in my bat belt, on an irregular basis. But I'm also a big fan of not having that be the only toy I pull out.JD:
I agree. And I think it's healthy because it's, at the same time, you're giving yourself permission to be okay with that dynamic, because it's very sensitive. You're working with sensuality and sexuality, and this is a tender place for people.Lee:
Yeah.JD:
And so being able to hear someone say stop, or ease up, or loosen this, and breathing with it and working through it, there's your edge as a top. We always say that we're pushing the edges of the bottoms. We're trying to find out how far can I push it? Well, there's a sensitive guy or girl who's orchestrating this, a service top, if you will, who also wants to know that they're pleasing, also wants to know that this is connecting, hopefully. As opposed to someone who's playing on someone as opposed to playing with them. If you're playing with them, you care. If you're playing on them, frankly, you shouldn't be playing.But my point being is that it can be helpful. It can be therapeutic. At the same time, it can be sensual and very turn-on.
Lee:
Yes.JD:
But yeah, I agree. It's a fun thing to do, it's what I do. I just tell people, it often throws people off a lot when I say, you can say “milkshake” if that makes you feel comfortable, as far as an extreme thing. But if you say it's too tight, then I'm gonna loosen it. If you say it's too loose, I'll tighten it. It's kind of like the old Zen koan. It says, when you're tired, sleep. When you're hungry, eat. That's it.Lee:
That’s it.JD:
That's the key to happiness. That's the key to it all. People go, what's the secret to Zen? When you're tired, sleep, and when you're hungry, eat. (laughs) It really is that authentically simple. We make it more complex. We try to, “it's gotta be really intricate, and I gotta stay outside of this monastery for a week and beg to get in.” And then the main monk says, “no, we have nothing to teach here. We're just simple people. We're running low on rice. We cannot feed you.” And then the sun goes down, and then the next day, you put your head on the table, on the front of the door and say, please, you must let me in, you must let me in. (Lee laughs)It's like this big - and the thing is too, and this is something that a lot of people don't recognize, is that if you define yourself as a student. If you define yourself as someone who doesn't know, who's struggling, and the person who realizes that - really it's all just about relaxing. It's all about accepting. It's all about going with the flow. It's all about eating when you're hungry. It's all about sleeping when you're tired.
But if they're gonna insist that they're a quaking mess, (Lee laughs) then you go, all right, fine, all right, fine. And you bring them in, and you start to, effectively, in Zen, especially, there's a game that is played. It's like, and now you see it, now you don't. It's a hide and go seek game.
It's kind of like holding your fist solid in front of a child, and you go, hey, hey, look at that, look at that, and you go, what's in there? Well, I got two fists, I got two fists, huh, huh? And you hold up the fist, these closed, clenched fists, and the kid after a while goes, “let me see, let me see, let me see,” and you hold it behind your back, and they go, “come on, come on, come on,” and you do this for hours, and then finally, you open your hands, there's nothing in them. There's nothing in them.
And these games will go on in different ways. They'll ask you questions like, who are you? Show me your true authentic self. They'll ask you questions like, before you were born, where were you? What was your, you know, what was your essence, what was your state? And what it really is, is not that you come to some answer. It's the sound of one hand clapping. You know what the sound of one hand clapping is? You know what it is? It's the thought of one hand clapping banging against your head. It's you stuck in the thought of one hand clapping. That's what the sound of one hand clapping is.
And what the idea is, that a fool who persists in his folly - or her folly - will soon become wise. It's that you become - if you're going to engage in this absurdity, this making matters worse, the stirring up dust and then questioning why the room is dirty, then let's really get into it. Let's get evangelical about it. (Lee laughs) Let's like really go, yes! And let's really make a mess.
And finally you go, I'm tired of this mess making. This is driving me mad. I can't do it anymore. And you just start accepting the moment. And that's when the wisdom comes. That's when the connection happens. That's when your partner sees you for the first time.
When you say, you know what, I'm going to stop reading all this crap, I'm going to stop getting so hung up on what I should be doing. I'm just going to fucking kiss you. Because I want to fucking kiss you right now. And I'm going to spank you. Because I fucking want to spank you. And I want to, whatever it is you want to do, I want to do it, I'm just going to do it. Fuck it all. Fuck what I'm supposed to do. I'm just going to be there and do it. That's when the beauty starts. That's when you throw the fucking microscope away, and you just dive in the goddamn pond. That's when the magic starts. And so all of it is about just… enjoying the gift of life. Being with it. There's no fancy answers. The doctrines are there to frustrate you, because these aren't the answers, my friend. If you're still playing the game, we'll play as long as you get to, as long as you're playing, we'll play with you.
Lee:
But there's not, you know, that whole notion that we're playing the game, the two fists are up, the kid's grabbing at the fist, all that kind of stuff.JD:
Yeah, it's just absurdity, yeah, of sorts.Lee:
Well, but at the same time, it's also a maker of memories. That that kid can look back and say, oh, I can't believe I played those games for so long. Or, wow, that was so fun when I got to play those games.JD:
Oh, well, don't miss my analogy. I'm not saying that playfulness is bad. I'm not saying that that game, I'll be playing that game. I played that game with my nephews and nieces, I don't mind that. It's a fun game. It's that we play this game with ourselves and we're unaware of it.Lee:
Yes.JD:
It's the lack of awareness. See, we think that there's something above all of this, everything that you're experiencing right now. When I look at the color of your hair, and I look at the crest of your eyebrow, and the shape of your face, I genuinely realize that's the point. That's why we're here. This is it. There's nothing more than this. There's nothing more to strive for. We're in it. The gift is now. This is going on right now.So all the people making messes, all the people trying to stir, I wanna become more enlightened. I wanna go higher and higher and then all the chief Buddha would - no, no, no. This is it. That's all noise. You're missing the point.
It's the concept I had, I had a dream once that I spent a lifetime living in piety and self-restraint. And then I died and in that death, and that moment, I realized I lived a lifetime in ignorance of heaven. This is your heaven. This is the afterlife of another death. This is the birth of a conscious mind. You know, soak it up, bathe in it, laugh at yourself! Play the role, be the worker by day, be the dancer by night, it's all a gift. Listen to whatever you want to be, whoever you feel like. It's your gift.
So when I see someone, I really am seeing a Buddha. I'm seeing a God.
Lee:
Yeah.JD:
I'm seeing Shiva. And when I look at them, I kind of give them that look and I say - I know you. I know you, Shiva. I know you're playing with me. I know you're trying to toy with me, to sort of suggest that you don't know you're in charge of all of this, that you're manifesting all of this. I know you, you're cute. And it's a far out game to be an unconscious god. It's a far out game. And so when I see people who are gods, we're all gods of sorts. And we have all this power, and all this ability to manifest connection, manifest beauty in our lives. And it's a pretty far out game, not to know that.Lee:
Yeah.JD:
The sleeping god, the unconscious god. So when I see that, when I meet people like that, in a way I want to give them a blessing or an honor, because it's such a - it's a far out game, I don't have the balls to play. Because I feel like it's such a precious gift. I can't, I can't ignore it. And so that's-Lee:
And you can't sleep through that yourself.JD:
I can't sleep through it, I can't pretend that I don't know it. I can't sit around and say, I'm gonna be depressed and mope, and wish and hope. I'm gonna do woulda, coulda, shoulda all day. It's a fun game if you like it. But there's an old - I'll give you one more koan, but there's an old one that I love especially.It says the student sees the mountain, and the mid-level monk knows the mountain is not real. And the enlightened see the mountain again. And so the point of that is that when you're starting out, everything's real, everything's solid, everything's the way it is. Someone says, this is all an illusion, this is all a non-reality. Then they pound a book and go, “look, this is real, tell me this isn't real.” That's the early stage.
The middle stage is when you realize, okay, this is all a manifestation. I've created this reality. Everything is filtered through me. I'm the microscope, and without me, this wouldn't exist. I wouldn't see any of this, I wouldn't experience any of this. I take you away, and this is all gone, to the one person who's most important to - you.
And then after that, you say well then I can play with it. Then you can have the mountain again. Then you can be insecure, if you want to play with that. And I tell people sometimes I go, bathe in it, you know. Have fun with it if you're enjoying it.
Lee:
Yeah, sometimes insecurity can be an amazing battery for doing, like, really kicking yourself in the butt and doing amazing stuff.JD:
Yeah, I had a moment not too long ago, about two months ago, where I walked into Wicked Grounds. And I've lived many lives, most of them, all of them that I remember, my name was JD. (Lee laughs) And the lives that I've lived thus far, started off as a confused and a fairly distracted kid, a little unconscious growing up.And in my middle 20s, I was really depressed and felt extracted - made for really good writing material, so I popped out a few books out of that material, so it wasn't worthless. And then I started realizing that I was a manifester, and helped create The Knotty Boys with Dan, started manifesting. I wanted to see people give this information away. I wanted to be the change in the world that I wanted to see, if you will.
Lee:
Yes.JD:
And so I became a teacher, I became a video producer, because I'm like, I wanna see videos that show you step by step how to do this. And I'm like, “fuck it, I'll do it myself.” I wanna see a teacher who's lighthearted and fun and open. I'll be that teacher, right? So then I played that game, and that role was fun. And I'll be honest, that role is shifting for me. I'm moving into other aspects of my creative expression.But that said, I walked into Wicked Grounds a few weeks ago, or I think a few months ago, actually. And I felt insecure. It's a younger crowd that was there, the particular time I came. I'm an older guy, I'm almost 40. And I sat down and had a little Orangina, and I felt insecure, and I felt unassured of myself. And preoccupied with my hands. And I loved it.
Lee:
Yeah.JD:
I hadn't felt that way since I was like 22. And I thought: I could either stand up and fight this, or I could just bathe in it, and I had fun with it. And I really was giddy with nervousness and unsureness. I liked it, it was a fun game to play.Lee:
That consciousness, if we look at the notion of say mastery and slavery, or dominance and submission - if it's unconscious mastery and slavery, if it's oppressing people without the awareness of that, if there's no - that is one experience of that thing, as compared to going it with a conscious mind. And if I enter into dominance and submission with a conscious mind, wait, I get to play with it now.JD:
Oh yeah.Lee:
I get to engage in this fully, without there being any nasty residue afterwards.JD:
And joy, absolutely.Lee:
And so that notion of going into that coffee shop, you know, going into a kinky coffee shop in San Francisco and being liken - oh, I get to be a little nervous - and to be aware of that, that's a rich gift that you gave yourself.JD:
Yeah, the moment that I just sat with. And it was, yeah, and that's what life is about. All of it is joyful. Even the parts we - and that's the thing, I think - there is a lot of beauty and gift past uncomfortable. And we are so obsessed with comfort, and we recoil at the slightest sense of discomfort. Our society has become obsessed with it. And because of that, people aren't aware of the gifts that occur after, frankly, I'll put it matter of factly, after a 12 hour work day. Or they're not aware of the gifts.And I'm not saying that I'm encouraging everyone to work crazy hours. Please, people in Podcast Land, I'm not saying “go out there and be good slaves!” But I'm just saying that...
Lee:
Unless you're a good slave. In which case, thank you for being a good slave.(both laugh)
JD:
I meant more of an economic slave, I apologize for the mixed metaphor there.What it is, is that knowing that you can accomplish something, knowing that you have the capacity to hang in there, and to achieve something that other people recoiled from. Knowing, for example, if you want to write a novel, you are going to feel uncomfortable. You are going to feel like “it is not hitting me, it is not clicking.” But if you create a ritual, if you create just a daily activity that you just keep going back to it, eventually it will be done. At the end of it, you will know that you can do it.
Then next thing you know, you can do a second, a third and a fourth. Because you proved yourself, I can do it. The first book I ever wrote, the first full-length book I ever wrote, was a novel called Soft Candy. You can find it on amazon.com. But that book, it's a great story, it's a dynamic story. It actually talks a little bit about my life while I was working and living in the underground dance communities locally here, back in the late ‘90s. Great parties, great excess.
But it was a way of showing myself I could write. And then after that, that's when I engaged Dan to do the Knotty Boys book. That's when I wrote my second novel. That's when we made the second book. That's when I started doing the videos. Because it was a part of, it was me showing that I could do it. Above and beyond everything.
Lee:
No, I totally hear you on the notion of daily practice. I remember talking to Whipmaster Bob out of Phoenix, Arizona. And my former Girl was asking him, well, how did you become an amazing whipmaster? I mean, you're Whipmaster Bob. You're not just Bob, you're Whipmaster Bob.JD:
Mind you, he gave himself that name. But go on. (laughs)
Lee:
Well, no, if he is like…JD:
No, I’m just playing. He’s very accomplished.Lee:
He's an amazing whip artist. And he said, you know what? “Every day. I pick up my singletail every single day. And even if I just flip it around for five minutes, I'm picking it up every single day.” And you know what? He couldn't see the difference a month later. He couldn't see the difference two months later. But a year later? Everyone around him knew instantly - wow, you've...JD:
That's how you do it.Lee:
Step at a time.JD:
There's a great quote by George Orwell, it's one of my favorite quotes. It's from Burmese Days. And if you ever get a chance to read some of his early essays, Burmese Days is an excellent array of his time working as an imperial policeman in Burma. Pick it up.Anyway, one of his quotes is that “we wear masks, and our faces grow to fit them.” And he was wearing the mask in this particular essay, “Killing an Elephant,” the mask of confidence. The mask of “I know how to do this,” the mask of “follow me,” with this elephant gun. He was tasked to kill an elephant, and he faked it and he made it, if you will.
Lee:
Right.JD:
And we wear masks of insecurity, we wear masks of “I cannot,” we wear masks of failure, and our faces grow to fit them. And one day, every day, you have the opportunity when you stare back in the mirror and you reacquaint yourself with that memory, that sort of mysterious falsehood that you call your life - which is only just a string of memories stuck in the moment that we're experiencing right now, that’s the only moment there is… I digress. (Lee laughs)But when you do that, you have the opportunity to wear a new mask. And over time, you will become that thing, that you at first pretended yourself to be. So if you want to be a really actualized whipmaster? Every day, master the whip. Every day work it, every day practice, everything, do it. And eventually, what will at first become awkward, will become skillful and flawless. You just got to keep doing it.
Lee:
Right. And I love the fact that both spiritual practice and sexual practice use the word practice.JD:
Oh yes.Lee:
It's the practice of putting on that mask. And you know what? Maybe there's going to be a day - or seven! - where you put on the old mask.JD:
Absolutely.Lee:
But that's about that notion of profound self-compassion, and living with that compassion in our lives as sexual beings, as spiritual beings, as emotional beings, as just being beings. I think it would be really, really important.JD:
Absolutely. It's more than just a way of connecting with your partner, and a way of having sex. It's a way of living. And that's what it all boils down to. The real connection is with self. And once that happens, it's amazing what falls out of place. You'll find the world becomes a very beautiful place. It ceases to be inhospitable. You cease to confront nature, you find yourself a part of it. You don't face facts, you sort of experience the manifestation of ideas, choices, philosophies. It all becomes a fun, open, expansive experience. And it all boils down to what you just said: it's just being here now, with all that's going on.Lee:
Yeah. Live.JD:
Live. Yeah. It's awesome. We're going to hug and eat granolas.Lee:
I think we are.JD:
In front of a campfire right now. (laughs)Lee:
Oh, god, okay.JD:
All the sentimentality.Lee:
Well, you know, I figure I'm having my fusion moment right now.JD:
Are you?Lee:
Having moved from - moving to New York, and now being in the moment in San Francisco, and yet always constantly just being wherever I am. That notion that, you know, what was the Baz Luhrmann piece, “live in New York once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, leave before it makes you soft.”JD:
Exactly.Lee:
I'm living in both right now. It’s a beautiful thing.JD:
It's inspiring, what you do. We would love to have you as a permanent resident. I'm not sure how that has not happened on our...Lee:
Well, I think New York has slammed down its foot for at least the next five years, and we'll see what happens after that. (both laugh) We'll see what happens after that.JD:
Draw him over to our side. (Lee laughs) You will embrace the granola.Lee:
Oh, I just need to work over my nut intolerance!JD:
And you're gonna get a bike. You're gonna get a bicycle, and you gotta hate motorists. You gotta drink a lot of coffee and hang out at Dolores Park. We gotta teach you how to be a San Franciscan!Lee:
That's funny. That's funny. Well, I think with that, we'll call it a day, or a night, or whatever you're being and doing out there in Podcast Land right now, in the moment.So, for those who are listening at home, you've joined us here at Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington in a bonus podcast! For those who are interested in finding JD online, you can find him at twoknottyboys.com, spelled K-N-O-T-T-Y, boys.com.
And you can find me either by looking up Lee Harrington, pretty much anywhere on the internet that isn't about dog walking books or being a judge. She's a lovely person, she's not me though. Or passionandsoul.com or just Passion and Soul on FetLife, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, any of those kinds of things.
To you, fellow adventurers of sexuality and spirit, thank you for joining us.
This has been Erotic Awakening with Lee Harrington and until next time, stay cool, have fun, be authentically you, live in the moment - and don't do anything I wouldn't do, which luckily isn't very much.
So have a fantastic journey.
Announcer:
Lee Harrington is a passionate spiritual and erotic educator, gender explorer, eclectic artist, and published author and editor on human sexuality and spiritual experience. He joins the Erotic Awakening team for a monthly podcast every third Monday of the month. Find out more about Lee at www.passionandsoul.com.Erotic Awakening is sponsored in part by Adventures in Sexuality, Central Ohio's kinky fun group. Visit Adventures in Sexuality at adventuresinsexuality.org.
And thank you for joining us on Erotic Awakening. Please help support our podcast by rating us on iTunes. This helps to let us know what you think about the podcast as well as making it more visible to others.
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Bye, Lee!
